


In the Kingdom of Frozen Shadows

by inK_AddicTion



Category: Frozen (2013), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: DONT TAKE THINGS HOME THAT YOU FIND IN BOXES, ESPECIALLY NOT IF THEYRE CREEPY PEOPLE, F/M, Frozen Shadows?, Gory description, Kinda, Oneshot, nothing too bad, of course the title is not an awful pun, some light innuendo at some point, whatever their ship name is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 20:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4320312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inK_AddicTion/pseuds/inK_AddicTion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Princess Elsa rescues a dark creature crawled aboard the wreckage of her parents' ship, and ends up with something far more than she intended.<br/>-written a little while ago for a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Kingdom of Frozen Shadows

It crawled aboard the wreckage of the ship on which her parents had died.

The splintered boards and occasional bloated corpse of the shipwreck washed up on a small islet not far from Arendelle. The sailors spent weeks carefully ferrying every body, every trunk and chest the queen and king had taken with them on their final journey, assembling them in a cleared warehouse near the wharves.

Elsa was called to identify the bodies of her parents. Any of the stewards or staff could have gone, but Elsa didn't want to trust such an important job to them. Besides- she was possessed of a sick fascination in her grief. What did they look like? What had the saltwater done to them?

It was late evening when she left the castle, dressed in a dark royal blue cloak with the hood pulled firmly up over her pale hair. It was a discreet exit, accompanied by one or two guards. Most of the townsfolk had closed their shutters by that time; purple dusk was kissing the low, snowbrushed roofs, bleeding dull grey and blue over slick cobbles, and the remote eye of the sun had closed long ago.

The walk down to the warehouse was silent and nervous. She clutched her arms desperately within the cloak, as if she could hold the cursed ice back at willpower alone. Frost chilled her fingertips, and a bitter wind picked up through the lonely streets. One of her guards shivered, and Elsa cast him a worried glance.

The bodies were all laid out on biers, ready for burial. They had been covered by white sheets. The bodies of the king and queen were set apart on a small, raised dais of crates. She almost laughed at the butchery of it- such respect while they were alive, and yet, the moment they were dead, they were reduced to lying on packet crates covered in stiff sheets.

Arendelle had never been overly concerned with the dead. How could they- when winter was constantly nipping at their heels, urging them to fall into the eternal sleep themselves?

The identification was short and swift. Elsa found her grief swallowed by an icy numbness that seemed to radiate down from her very core. She wondered if the ice in her heart had made her broken.

The others- dark robed sisters of the grave, her guards, seemed to be expecting her to break down at any moment and sob. But Elsa didn't. She looked upon the twisted and bloated faces of her parents and felt nothing more than a chill of horror and mild disgust. They stank like seaweed and rotting fish.

The constant itch in her palms, urging her to unleash blasts of ice and snow, spread through her entire body, and Elsa was aware of her temperature chilling. When she moved to leave, she heard the soft crack of frost as she lifted her boots from the floor.

The guards definitely shivered this time.

The chest, when she passed it, was exactly the same as all the others. Warped from exposure to water, darkened and stained. The heavy brass locks were rusted shut. But there was something, a prickling, hungry presence within that made her heart lurch and her pale skin flush with sudden warmth. She paused beside it and placed a delicate hand on the lid. So cold was her power that immediately the rusted metal turned brittle and snapped off.

She lifted the lid, barely paused to wonder why her guards and the usher weren't paying attention to the mysterious actions of their queen, and shadows seeped out, throwing themselves out like a howling cyclone of nipping mouths and caressing hands, eyes like flame torches and insubstantial bodies like wisps of smoke. The shadows cleared, and she gasped.

It was a man, naked as a newborn and covered in pale grey skin stretched taut over angular bones, long frame doubled up to fit in the chest, thick chains affixed around his thin wrists and long neck. Water sloshed at the very bottom of the chest. There were darker lines, like charcoal, over his back and hips, short, small scars, faint lines that spoke of vicious whippings, ugly scars over his wrists and forearms, scratch marks over his thighs that made him look as if careful slits had been made into his skin, peeled back to flay him alive. His thick ropes of matted onyx hair hung limp over his face.

"Guards," said Elsa faintly.

The usher sidled up behind her. "That box was not in the original cargo, princess Elsa," she said in a low, oily voice. "We were unable to break it open."

 _Perhaps he was waiting for me,_ Elsa thought fancifully.

"This man needs medical attention," she said, pointing at the man, who looked as still and dead as a puppet. Did his heart even still beat?

"What man, your Highness?" asked one guard, and she glanced at them in disbelief.

"That one," she said, indicating the comatose man. The guards looked at her as if she were insane.

"There's no one there, your Highness," the guard said slowly.

"Perhaps the lady is over-grieved," said the usher, "A rest at the palace-"

Elsa huffed. She could clearly see the man. She didn't want to touch him in case her frost marred his skin. But if the guards and the usher couldn't even see him...She thought about the movements of the shadows and felt a sick sense of dread.

Was he a ghost? A wight? Some haunted revenant of a sunken ship?

Elsa thought it best not to anger the spirits of the dead. Dare she disturb him? She looked down silently at the angled face and her gloved hand rose shyly from the protective embrace of her cloak.

Was she seeing things? Dare she touch dead, cold flesh?

 _I'm cursed-_ she thought, then,  _and if he's dead then a bit of ice can't do much worse..._

She made her decision, and her hand, shaking with fear, tenderly brushed a lock of shaggy, limp hair off the man's forehead. She tucked it behind a sharp ear. Encouraged by the lack of response both from her ice and the man, she continued gently stroking his hair off his face until it was fully clear. His face was crusted with detritus- sand had found it's way into his mouth, his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks. She wiped it away, ignoring the puzzled looks of her companions.

Something warm huffed against her fingertips, and it seemed as if at her touch a flush spread through his body, blood warming and a pulse starting in his throat.

Slitted eyes slowly opened, and bright, harsh gold shone out from underneath his fragile lids, catlike, inhuman. The man's eyes welled up with tears at the sight of her, and his body seemed to hunch, waiting for a blow.

"Hello," she said quietly. "My name is Elsa."

The man shivered. He looked cold. He looked afraid.

"Don't be afraid," she told him. "I won't hurt you. I promise."

She rose to her feet and gestured to her guards. "Bring that box up to my chambers."

They looked at her in askance. Elsa raised an eyebrow, and channeling her father as best as she could, repeated harshly, "Did you mishear?"

"No, your highness," said the guard, and with his fellow they rushed to pick up the box, balancing it on their shoulders. Elsa walked beside it, catching slitted yellow eyes through a crack in the box watching her with wary apprehension.

She wondered what his name was.

* * *

"Pitch," said Elsa.

She gripped the marble balcony hard, pretending not to notice frost curling over it. Her back was stiff and tense as the unmistakable prickle of fear that announced the shadow's presence grew stronger.

She felt a cold huff of air against her neck and shuddered.

"Hello,  _Your Majesty,"_ he purred. Stone-grey hands gripped her elbows, and his thin chest pressed against her back. His sharp face buried itself into her neck.

After the past few years, she was experienced enough to breathe through the extreme fear his touch caused until it subsided. She was tense, bowing her head slightly as the darkness of his influence poisoned her frost until twisted icicles of captured nightmares speared from the balcony. She had grown to love their combined powers, sharp and deadly but undeniably magnificent, bitterly envied his easy control of his shadow.

Darkness seeped like a wound over Arendelle far below, and Elsa saw jet horses weaving their way between the narrow houses, spreading their nightmares. It was beautiful in a dark and twisted way.

"As of a week ago," she said flatly. "And already I managed to cause a massive blizzard and nearly freeze all my subjects."

"I killed all mine when I was a king," Pitch commented lightly, kissing her braid, "and turned them into poisonous hungry Fearlings. I really wouldn't worry about it."

"Has anyone told you you're really bad at making someone feel better?"

"There are  _other ways_ that I'm much better at, I assure you," he said haughtily, and Elsa had to snicker, because she knew all too well Pitch was much nicer when one couldn't hear him speak.

"My councilors have been on at me to pick a husband," she said lightly, turning in his arms. Pitch's bright gold eyes blinked at her and a smirk curved his thin lips. "I wasn't sure how to tell them I already had a King. Granted- one that everyone thinks I'm crazy for thinking actually exists-"

"-Details-"

"-Exactly."

He kissed her and his lips tasted like brimestone and ash.

"What goes better together than cold and dark?" she asked, and he rested his head on her shoulder as she stroked her fingers through his thick dark hair. "Other than dreams-"

" _Shut up."_

"Never."

* * *

Queen Elsa had been dead for hundreds of years.

Pitch Black still remembered  _'cold and dark'._

When she came back as Jack Frost, Pitch thought it was an end to his loneliness after all these years of waiting. But while her powers roamed the earth once more, his Elsa was long gone.

He was alone.


End file.
